I just completed spring quarter at the University of California in Santa Barbara and was looking forward to spending the summer at home with my parents. My father had recently accepted a position as Associate Warden of San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California. One of the perks, which could be debated, was that staff had the option to live on grounds at the prison. The facility consists of an outer gate with full security that houses the prison inside as well as a community includes streets and living quarters for hundreds of employees and their families. At that time, it also had a community gym as well and a small post office and gift shop located just outside the main gate. The cost, I was told, was much more reasonable than rent or a mortgage payment was in Marin County, which is one of the more affluent areas in California. The real estate that the prison and the expansive grounds it occupies, due to its location and proximity to the bay, are worth millions of dollars should the state of California ever decide to sell it!

It was very early in the morning when I left my small off-campus apartment in Isla Vista and my mind was filled with a predictable mix of thoughts about school and anticipation of a summer spent at home. I moved out a couple of years before when my parents had lived in Sacramento and, though I had visited them since the move, I was unsure what to expect spending a few months living at San Quentin. This was before I entered the Army and so I had no experience living in any type of secured community.

I arrived in the late morning and the gate guard asked me who I was there to visit. I informed him that I was moving “home” for the summer and would be around for a few months. After verifying my identification, and calling to confirm I was authorized, he lifted the gate and I drove in and down the road towards my parent’s house. They lived on a hill in a beautiful home that appeared to be built around the turn of the last century, plus or minus a decade. The yard was filled with flowers and the living room had huge windows that had a fantastic view of the San Francisco bay as well as the prison itself. I remember thinking what a contrast the two aspects of the view were. On exceptionally clear days, which were rare due to the near ever-present bay area fog, you could also see Alcatraz prison, then a state park, which added to the spectacle.

In addition to the living room, the house had a family room, sun room, back yard (also filled with flowers) and three bedrooms. I remember thinking that aside from the proximity to the prison this was a nice place to live. Interestingly, the grounds were all maintained by inmates supervised by guards. I realized this early on when I saw that the landscape workers wore the same blue shirt and denim pants that the inmates had on. I also noticed that they were very observant, especially if you were with a female.

In the morning scores of inmates would gather in the main yard and would chant in unison while exercising. I later learned that some of the groups also did this for religious reasons as well as for a show of unity. To a curious outsider, hearing this mixed with the chilling and dense morning fog was both fascinating and somewhat unnerving at the same time! In thinking about it now, it was not unlike some of the more solemn cadences that resonated during early morning physical training sessions that army units do when in garrison.

I visited the inside of the actual prison several times that summer and was fascinated not so much by the denizens, as I had been raised around that (i.e., my father spent the majority of his career in corrections), but by the stark surroundings and the aging architecture of the walls and buildings. I later learned that it was constructed in 1852 with little renovation or change since. In many ways it was similar to ancient forts of the type you would see in far-flung outposts still standing from Spain’s hegemony in places like Manila Bay. During my visits, I also was the recipient of catcalls and much staring as I was 18 then, and even though I am a native Californian, it left an impression on me. One positive outcome from this was that it helped me to more fully understand just how some employees feel when they are victims of harassment, which was useful when I started working in human resources a few years later. I also viewed death row and saw the gas chamber, which was still operational at that time, though that summer it was not put to use.

Visiting day was on Sunday and I remember that because it was one of three times that the main gate was often crowded with people and cars. The other two were during protests, which were also fairly common and usually concerned the death penalty, and during daily shift changes. Visitors would line up and they included a fairly representative sampling of individuals from all walks of life, ethnicities, and income levels and included; girlfriends, family members of assorted ages, attorneys, and friends. The expressions were as varied as the people though many sported looks of sadness tinged with frustration, no doubt in part due to the wait in line, and some tried to look cheerful, though it was clear they did not want to be there. It was not too different from the group that I would see visiting juveniles when I worked as a counselor in a probation department later on. During these experiences, I always wondered what these many were really thinking as they journeyed through the rote security process and queuing just to share a few moments with family, or associates, who were incarcerated.

The prison was located just a few miles down highway 101 from the Golden Gate Bridge, which was next to San Francisco. During that summer I often rode my bicycle around the area and occasionally over the bridge never-failing to marvel at the scenery and the pace of life in and around the city. It is impossible to live in Marin County and not visit the City for shopping, entertainment, or just for escape. When you live on grounds at the prison this is especially true because there is a ferry terminal outside of the back gate that goes directly to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The ride across the bay takes under an hour and is better than fighting traffic and searching for an overpriced place to park your car on the weekends.

The summer eventually passed and it was time for me to leave the prison by the bay and get back to college life. As I left I told the somewhat bored looking gate guard that I was going back to college and he responded with an indifferent “I don’t care gaze” but, being the well-trained peace officer and public servant that he obviously was, he wished me well nonetheless. Living on grounds at a prison and not being a convict or peace officer is an unusual experience and one that stays with you for life, especially when that prison is San Quentin.

Uncle Joe is the name of a common relation that a lot of us know and love. My particular Uncle Joe is actually my father’s Uncle Joe and his birth name was Jose. I did not know my Uncle Joe well at all, but he nonetheless had an impact on me and many others during his life, and after.

What I know about his background is that he was born in 1908 in the middle of Mexico, in a state called Zacatecas, in the capital by the same name, in a sleepy village called Jerez. The region was well settled by the Spaniards less than 100 years after Columbus opened up the new world to the west. Uncle Joe was the fourth born child and though he was the third born son, he was named after his father. When Uncle Joe was little, his family owned a ranch in a country that would soon be in the midst of yet another revolution. The house where he was born was made from adobe and looked to be ancient when I saw it some eight decades after he was born (my grandfather, his brother, was born in the same house).

Uncle Joe spent his early years helping out with the ranch and going to school. When the revolution, which started in 1910 and lasted until 1920, began to intensify the family decided to move to the United States. By the time Uncle Joe was 12 he was living in Chandler, Arizona and later in Colorado with his father and older brothers working in fields, mines, and as labor to support themselves and the family. Eventually, they relocated to southern California and made it their new home.

As far as I can tell, during the 1930’s, when he was in his 20’s, uncle Joe worked in sales. He was single and had no children. However, he did have many brothers and sisters, in-laws, and nieces and nephews, some of whom he was close to like my father and grandparents. In 1936 he applied to become a naturalized US citizen, which was eventually granted. To me, the really interesting part of his story begins when he joined the Merchant Marines sometime during the late 1930’s or early 1940’s, when Uncle Joe was in his 30’s.

Before I go on, the United States Merchant Marines, for those who are unfamiliar, consists of a fleet of privately owned ocean vessels that are operated by the government or private sector. The fleet transports goods and services in and out of U.S. waters. During times of peace, they transport passengers as well as cargo, but in wartime they function as an auxiliary to the Navy. In the latter capacity, they transport service members, supplies, and cargo directly for the military. I knew little about this until Uncle Joe passed away, at which time I checked to see if he was eligible for any Veteran’s benefits, since he worked in the Merchant Marines during World War II, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam War.

When Uncle Joe was in the Merchant Marines he traveled all over the world (literally). Based upon his letters, he loved seeing new places. There are pictures of him in Egypt next to the pyramids, strolling down Canal Street in New Orleans, enjoying dinner in Paris, and exploring the Alamo in Texas. He traveled to Europe and researched the family’s genealogy in Spain and visited the beaches in South Africa. He enjoyed dancing in Tokyo and went down under to hike the outback in Australia. He visited the Azores and Tahiti and even enjoyed the night life in Rio. In short, this man who was born in rural Mexico shortly after the turn of the century found a career a little later in life than his contemporaries that enabled him to explore the world!

I know this mainly from his stories which were retold to me by my father and grandparents. I know this also from the circulated coins, bills, and stamps that he brought back and gave to my father from all of his many ports of call. When I was a child, I would look at the foreign bills and change with their exotic writing and pictures and imagine what these places were really like. Uncle Joe wrote post cards to my father and grandparents, many of which survived multiple moves and clearly showed how much he enjoyed his life.

When I was little, Uncle Joe was to me an intense man who always seemed to be far away, even when he was in the same room. He was pleasant but did not say much to the little boy that I was then. My father and grandparents always loved to see him and they would talk for hours about times long past. He was different from my grandfather in that he never did marry nor have any children. The rumor in the family was that early investments in property enabled him to have a comfortable retirement, though I never saw any evidence of that. After I came back from a tour overseas in the Army, I asked my father to have Uncle Joe write down any information that he had about the family, so I could share it with mine someday. Uncle Joe did that, though he confused me with my brother, and I have since shared that letter with extended members of the family who found the contents to be priceless in filling in gaps of family history that appeared after his generation had passed.

I have been fortunate to travel to many faraway places in my life, but I have not yet seen a fraction of what Uncle Joe has seen. Whenever, I visit a new area, I invariably wonder to myself if Uncle Joe has been there before me. When my father and I were in Macau, we ducked in to a little piano bar to take a break from sight-seeing one day. Near our table was a small plaque that indicated that this was the place where the Pan Am Clipper planes landed. I asked my father if he thought Uncle Joe might have stopped there, to which he replied that knowing him he probably did!

Twenty years ago, Uncle Joe, who was then 84 years old, had a stroke and was hospitalized. I took my grandparents to see him one afternoon. He was in bed and could barely speak and was pale and drawn, but the minute he noticed my grandparents, he became more alert and even managed to smile, just a little. They visited for a while with my grandparents doing the talking but aside from the obvious, Uncle Joe was different this time. That distant look that he had always had whenever I saw him before was gone. It was replaced with a tired, weak, but warm and satisfied expression of a man who realized his time was nearly up and who was somehow grateful nonetheless to be where he was at that moment.

Uncle Joe (Jose C. Campos) is gone now and since he has departed, I have thought a lot about him and the legacy that he left. He did not, to my knowledge, leave a large estate, or a forlorn widow or fatherless children behind. He did not write books, compose music, cure a disease, or discover a new planet. His legacy was much simpler in that he lived his life the way he wanted to, in an era when many would not or could not do it. In the process he showed those around him that they could do the same!

A guy with a desk!

@DrAnthony

I was born and raised in southern California, but I currently live in central Florida. Like most people, the roles in life I have are numerous and include; son, father, husband, brother, uncle, friend, supervisor, mentor, and others. People, and the ways we relate to each other, fascinate me and I always enjoy interacting and making new friends.

My journey has so far taken me from China to Germany, Oregon to New York, and from the desert to the ocean and back again. I started college at 16, dropped out to enlist in the Army and take a break, and went back and earned a bachelors, masters, and doctorate. Along the way, I got married, had kids, and adopted pets, which currently include 2 dogs, a Guinea Pig and a Beta fish. Spending time with family, learning, writing and travel are my primary pursuits these days when I am not earning a living.

I have worked in many different industries and jobs and have been a life-long student of people. I am a possibility thinker who aspires to live fully, always learn, and enjoy life, as much as possible. In this blog, I will share stories, information, and ideas that I have come across, experienced, or thought about that will (hopefully) be interesting, inspiring or entertaining to read.